I loved it. Its even more epic than Harry Potter finale. The ending us glorious. Kinda win-win solution

Cant wait for the blu ray!!

+1
When I saw the TV Spots saying "Surprise Twist ending" I thought to myself, how much of a surprise could it be? It's a damn book!!!
Man what an ending!!! The first hour was painful for me to watch, but the last hour was effing great!

while admitting there are aspects about them that drive me nuts (like Bella and her total codependency issues).

And now I'm gonna go on about that since you mentioned it haha. See I watch a lot of people complain about Bella's total and utter reliance on a man to exist. I understand the anger there but that's the sad state of the world today.

I, being a man, probably shouldn't have an opinion it as I'm not a woman but I feel like my opinion is line with a lot of women. I totally wish there were more independent women in the world who have no reliance to the male gender to exist. I'm pretty much a feminist haha I don't think any man is going to make a woman or break a woman because women are the stronger sex by nature and birth, our society just fails to recognize it.

With that said, we can blame a lot of mainstream media for the way Stephanie Meyer wrote the book, well that and her devout mormon beliefs as to why Bella is codependent on a man, because thats the way the Mormon church operates and believes it should be.

I blame Taylor Swift too. For the last 6 years, she has pandered to the entire female gender with her music. All she writes about how being in love is all you need to exist in the world and without it you are nothing but a sad ball of depression and you cannot simply go on. And with 20 Million album sales and millions more in single sales, its clear people are lapping it up.

Young impressionable girls have bought into this mentality that the only way to feel valued is to have a man's approval. This mentality is now being realized coming from males, and this where my argument with One Direction comes into play.

Two of their songs panders to the "you're only beautiful because I say you are and that's all you need to succeed in life, is my validation" crowd. And the lyrics are frigging disgusting and the sad thing is girls LAP them up like its the bible.

I firmly believe these mitigating factors are why we have the generation of young girls we do now.

I wished a lot of girls listened to Lana Del Rey, because while monotone, she writes a lot of female empowering songs and about how she needs no man in her life to validate her.

And now I'm gonna go on about that since you mentioned it haha. See I watch a lot of people complain about Bella's total and utter reliance on a man to exist. I understand the anger there but that's the sad state of the world today.

I, being a man, probably shouldn't have an opinion it as I'm not a woman but I feel like my opinion is line with a lot of women. I totally wish there were more independent women in the world who have no reliance to the male gender to exist. I'm pretty much a feminist haha I don't think any man is going to make a woman or break a woman because women are the stronger sex by nature and birth, our society just fails to recognize it.

With that said, we can blame a lot of mainstream media for the way Stephanie Meyer wrote the book, well that and her devout mormon beliefs as to why Bella is codependent on a man, because thats the way the Mormon church operates and believes it should be.

I blame Taylor Swift too. For the last 6 years, she has pandered to the entire female gender with her music. All she writes about how being in love is all you need to exist in the world and without it you are nothing but a sad ball of depression and you cannot simply go on. And with 20 Million album sales and millions more in single sales, its clear people are lapping it up.

Young impressionable girls have bought into this mentality that the only way to feel valued is to have a man's approval. This mentality is now being realized coming from males, and this where my argument with One Direction comes into play.

Two of their songs panders to the "you're only beautiful because I say you are and that's all you need to succeed in life, is my validation" crowd. And the lyrics are frigging disgusting and the sad thing is girls LAP them up like its the bible.

I firmly believe these mitigating factors are why we have the generation of young girls we do now.

I wished a lot of girls listened to Lana Del Rey, because while monotone, she writes a lot of female empowering songs and about how she needs no man in her life to validate her.

IDK, just my two cents.

I just wish people would leave each other alone. A woman feels she needs to be with someone, because she's lonely otherwise and feels unwanted? That's her right to feel that way. Conversely, a woman feels she could care less about dating and will do so if and when she feels like it? That's her right as well. No one should be telling either woman what they should or shouldn't feel. I know plenty of men who feel alone if they're not dating, or have self-esteem issues if they don't have a girlfriend. I never hear anyone judging these men, or telling them what they should think or feel. How about people just let each other be who they are, and climb off the judgement train?

And now I'm gonna go on about that since you mentioned it haha. See I watch a lot of people complain about Bella's total and utter reliance on a man to exist. I understand the anger there but that's the sad state of the world today.

I, being a man, probably shouldn't have an opinion it as I'm not a woman but I feel like my opinion is line with a lot of women. I totally wish there were more independent women in the world who have no reliance to the male gender to exist. I'm pretty much a feminist haha I don't think any man is going to make a woman or break a woman because women are the stronger sex by nature and birth, our society just fails to recognize it.

With that said, we can blame a lot of mainstream media for the way Stephanie Meyer wrote the book, well that and her devout mormon beliefs as to why Bella is codependent on a man, because thats the way the Mormon church operates and believes it should be.

You are very spot on in your assessments, my main contrarian point would be just because that's the state of the world today, that doesn't mean we have to accept it.

I can also confirm that by no means does the Mormon church teach women to be submissive. I have heard plenty of Mormons complain Meyer is a very sexist writer. In my own experience my own interactions with Mormon girls indicate they are not being taught to be submissive, if there is a problem in the religion it's only a reflection of the bigger problem in society.

She ignores Edward when he doesn't want her around Jacob. When Jacob steals a kiss she punches him, at harm to herself. She won't give up the argument when Edward says that he doesn't want to make her a vampire. When she gets pregnant Edward is afraid of what could happen, wants the fetus aborted, and she refuses.

When should she have acted differently? Refused to meet his mostly kind family for some fun vampire baseball? Forced someone to make her a vampire early on so she could protect herself? Pushed Edward to have sex before they got married like she somewhat wanted?

Bella is never submissive. The only thing she ever is, is in love. If you want to say this series proves how crazy love is then that's a fair argument.

One mostly agreed upon role model is Buffy. Bella may or may not be as overtly a role model as her but does that make her a bad one?

Buffy (temporarily) killed Angel. But that was after he had lost his soul and killed an innocent. Edward never lost his soul or killed any humans when Bella was around him. Also, the only humans he ever killed were predators.

And like I mentioned Bella did want to fight for herself and the people she cared about. If she was a vampire earlier on I'm guessing people would have a lot less issues with the series.

Until the the last movie Bella's only real fight is for the love that she feels. Knowing it's right despite what anyone else says. Knowing Edward and his family are good. It's her faith that she holds to.

Yeah, in a way, simply having a girl physically fighting is inspiring. But while Buffy inspired me more than any other character, it was everything between the kicks and punches that meant something to me.

Buffy has some similarities to Bella. Buffy would see individuals for who they are, or sometimes who they could be. Bella has that too and you see it mostly with the Cullens and wolf pack. For Buffy it was nearly everything you could name.

Buffy sacrificed over and over, for everyone. At immense cost to herself. Bella well... not exactly. The biggest thing is when she continues the pregnancy, which temporarily kills her, to bring her daughter into the world.

Bella isn't Buffy... or Hermione... or Lisbeth... or other female characters. Characters I also adore and am grateful exist. She's different. That doesn't mean she isn't worthwhile.

Bella isn't submissive, no -- she's co-dependent. When her boyfriend leaves her, she practically becomes suicidal. That's a dangerous message to send to tween girls, which is who the series is aimed at. But I guess you could ration it out by saying Bella is an immature seventeen year old and not meant to be a role model -- this is simply her story.

I just wish people would leave each other alone. A woman feels she needs to be with someone, because she's lonely otherwise and feels unwanted? That's her right to feel that way. Conversely, a woman feels she could care less about dating and will do so if and when she feels like it? That's her right as well. No one should be telling either woman what they should or shouldn't feel. I know plenty of men who feel alone if they're not dating, or have self-esteem issues if they don't have a girlfriend. I never hear anyone judging these men, or telling them what they should think or feel. How about people just let each other be who they are, and climb off the judgement train?

Just MY two cents.

This sums up my feelings to a T. Heck, I have relatives constantly harrass me because "it's not right" that I'm single. And I'm a man. So this isn't something that women alone get harrassed about. They just get more press since it's stereotypically unmanly to vent your problems whereas girls are encouraged to get on the figurative soapbox (while paradoxically being later decried for being "hysterical").

People just need to chill. A woman or man feels he/she cannot be truly happy without a mate, that's his/her right. Likewise, if he/she feels perfectly fine on his/her own that is also his/her right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lupinskitten

Bella isn't submissive, no -- she's co-dependent. When her boyfriend leaves her, she practically becomes suicidal. That's a dangerous message to send to tween girls, which is who the series is aimed at. But I guess you could ration it out by saying Bella is an immature seventeen year old and not meant to be a role model -- this is simply her story.

My experience with this franchise is limited to the last movie but from it I didn't find Bella to be anything remotely intended to be a role model. She was just the protagonist. Are the other films different?

[Show spoiler]The only complaint is that They did not spend enough time on the relationship between Bella and her Daughter. I felt Rosalie bonded more then her own mother. I really liked how protective Jacob was.

[Show spoiler]The only complaint is that They did not spend enough time on the relationship between Bella and her Daughter. I felt Rosalie bonded more then her own mother. I really liked how protective Jacob was.

And of course the CG face.

Wish it was longer in general. More Bella being a vampire, more Renesmee, more everyone. If they had added two hours of character development, character exploration, and bonding I would be over the moon.

While I haven't read the book for comparison I was also really happy with how they handled Jacob.

[Show spoiler]Having the scene where he nearly got undressed in front of Charlie to ease the tension was perfect.

So me and the wife finally saw this film to wrap up the series. Spoilers to not upset fans

[Show spoiler]in the film Bella takes lessons from the Cullens on pretending to be human, but I wonder if she also finally got around to taking some acting lessons in real life as I felt that her acting was significantly better than the first 4 films. I'm not hating on the girl for her performance in the earlier ones, I am just noting that she should be eligible for a most improved actress award if such a thing exists. This was the first one in the series were her performance has not adversely affected my watching experience. This is just my personal opinion so please do not be offended.

I really liked the way they did the credits where every semi-major character from the whole film series got a pictured credit shout out. That was a really nice way to pay tribute to all the actors who contributed (even if they were replaced in the sequel). Now I think something like that would have been pretty cool to include in the Harry Potter ending. I'm not sure if it was partly to stretch the runtime a little (because I don't believe they had enough content to split this into two separate parts), but it was a nice touch. It would be kind of neat to see this done in other series finale films in the future like Hunger Games.

Young impressionable girls have bought into this mentality that the only way to feel valued is to have a man's approval. This mentality is now being realized coming from males, and this where my argument with One Direction comes into play.

Two of their songs panders to the "you're only beautiful because I say you are and that's all you need to succeed in life, is my validation" crowd. And the lyrics are frigging disgusting and the sad thing is girls LAP them up like its the bible.

I firmly believe these mitigating factors are why we have the generation of young girls we do now.

I wished a lot of girls listened to Lana Del Rey, because while monotone, she writes a lot of female empowering songs and about how she needs no man in her life to validate her.

IDK, just my two cents.

Twilight is no more looks-focused, at least when it comes to women, than any other film. One may argue it's less. Bella is often a plain character. When Edward becomes interested in her she's at her most average. Compare this to many, many films where the girl gets "hot" before the guy notices or truly accepts her.

This is easy to forget since all the guys seem to want Bella immediately. Jessica aptly puts that Bella is the "shiny new toy". Being around a person from a different place is almost as exciting as going there yourself.

Not to say that Kristen Stewart isn't a beautiful woman. She definitely is. I like her besides her attractiveness too. However, in much of the series, she is "common" looking for herself. Edward was in love with her before the prom dress, way before the wedding dress, and infinitely before she was a vampire where some might argue she's at her sexiest.

These films are romantic. I'd argue they go past that and are about love as a whole. Also understanding yourself and others. Even if they were straight-forward romance films, what's wrong with that? Those are movies that make people feel good. I've no doubt that plenty of independent women and men enjoy the romance genre. On occasion it'll make them sad. Everybody gets sad now and then. Doesn't matter if they're usually happily alone or usually happily coupled.

I cherish girls. I don't want them to hurt or for them to hurt themselves. To some degree I relate to looks related confidence issues and I hugely relate to lacking confidence in general. Is it the same for me as it is for them? Heck no. Regardless I care about them and I'm completely about female empowerment and contentment.

To me Twilight is never against any of that. It's only people's misunderstandings of the series that is. Who knows though? Maybe it's good the films get people talking about this stuff. Makes little sense it'd be the movie to do it but when does life care about being logical.

I'm waiting to see if finally having all the movies out will get this franchise a collector's set. I own the first three on DVD, but have held off upgrading in the hope of a boxed collection of some sort. =)

I'm waiting to see if finally having all the movies out will get this franchise a collector's set. I own the first three on DVD, but have held off upgrading in the hope of a boxed collection of some sort. =)